A black day for the 8th Battalion, 25 September 1915: Private Samuel Keen, Private Arthur Palmer, Private Charles Stuart, Private William Henry West

The Devonshire Regiment cap badge

Four men from the Lower Otter Valley lost their lives on 25 September at the Battle of Loos. This was a combined Anglo-French offensive intended to break through the German defences in Artois and Champagne in NW France and restore a war of movement. 

Above: 'Gassed', a very large oil painting completed in March 1919 by John Singer Sargent. It depicts the aftermath of a mustard gas attack during the First World War, with a line of wounded soldiers walking towards a dressing station. Sargent was commissioned by the British War Memorials Committee to document the war and visited the Western Front in July 1918 spending time with the Guards Division near Arras, and then with the American Expeditionary Forces near Ypres. The painting was finished in March 1919 and voted picture of the year by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1919. It is now held by the Imperial War Museum 

Image credit: Imperial War Museum ART 1460

The action saw the first British use of poison gas, with disappointing results.  “It will be seen that the attack with gas was not the success that had been anticipated,” wrote the Special Correspondent of the Western Morning News of 5 April 1919. “It lacked the element of surprise as to the exact moment it was to be launched.  A favourable wind was an important feature in the days when gas clouds were the vogue.”

For the Devonshire Regiment there were some memorable achievements. Despite German shelling and British gas blowing back on them during the attack, the 8th Battalion pressed on with their attack and captured the German position. 

The 9th followed in support, losing a great many men to machine gun fire as they crossed No Man’s Land to join the 8th in their stretch of German trench.  The survivors of the two Battalions held the position until the evening of 26 September, when they were withdrawn. 

The two Battalions succeeded in capturing German field guns, two of which were brought back to Exeter to be paraded in the streets.

The Loos Memorial

Image credit: www.cwgc.org

But the ultimate result was a stalemate, with heavy losses on both sides. In this single battle the 8th Battalion suffered 639 casualties, and the 9th 476.

“We had a terrible time starting on the 25th September,” wrote Private Dennis in the Western Evening News of 13 November 1915.  “We lost over 600 men and all the officers that went with us.  I never felt more proud of Devonshire men than I do today.  When we were all lined up waiting for the word to charge (of course we were in the first line of trenches all night, it was 6.20 when we got the order to charge), not a man failed.  When we got over the parapet we were met with a terrible rifle and shell fire, gas, and barbed wire.  The enemy seemed to know what we were going to do.”  

All four men from the Lower Otter Valley are commemorated on the Loos Memorial, near the village of  Loos-en-Gohelle, five kilometres north-west of Lens. The Memorial forms the sides and back of Dud Corner Cemetery.

Samuel Keen was born in Cheriton Fitzpaine in Mid Devon in 1879. He was the son of dairy farmer Samuel senior and Charlotte Keen, who had seven children.The 1891 census shows the family living at Brook Farm, Tiverton, but young Samuel later became a waggoner and a resident of East Budleigh, although his name does not appear on any memorials in the village. He was 35 years old when he was killed.

The War Memorial in All Saints Church, East Budleigh 

Private Arthur Palmer was an East Budleigh man, born around 1874. He was the son of Alfred and Mary Jane Palmer and had a brother, William, who would die two years later, on 23 August 1917.  Arthur Palmer left a widow, Jeanette, but has no known grave. However his name appears on war memorials in Exmouth and in Seaton as well as on the All Saints Church memorial in East Budleigh.  

Private Charles Stuart’s name also appears on All Saints Church memorial, tragically next to those of his two brothers Arthur and Albert, who were killed  in 1916 and 1917 respectively.  All three were the sons of William Henry and Elizabeth Ann Stuart, of Brookside Cottage. Charles was aged only 20 when he died.

Twenty-two-year-old Private William West was the fourth man from the 8^th Batallion to be killed in action on 25 September 1915. The 22-year-old  was the sixth of 13 children born to John and Amelia West and grew up in East Budleigh.  His mother’s maiden name was Sanders.  

Perriam's grocery store was at 23 Fore Street

By 1911 the family had moved to Budleigh Salterton; when William died they were living at 12, Cliff Road. His father John was a van man for Perriams, the town’s grocery store, where William worked as an assistant before he enlisted.

William Henry West’s name appears on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial and on the brass plaque in St Peter’s Church in Budleigh Salterton, as well as at the town’s football club, and on the Loos Memorial.

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!

The first of two Newton Poppleford brothers to die: Acting Staff Serjeant Dan Smale, 19 September 1915

 

The name of Dan Smale, Acting Staff Serjeant with the Army Service Corps, 50th Field Butchery Division, appears on the Helles Memorial which stands on the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula. An obelisk over 30 metres high, it can be seen by ships passing through the Dardanelles.

Dan Smale and his brother Charles, who would die ten months later, were the children of Thomas and Sarah Ann Smale.  Their father described himself as a cattle dealer but was also involved in the slaughter and butchering of the beasts, and in White’s Gazetteer of Devon he is described as a butcher. In 1891 apart from himself, he also employed his four oldest children in the business.

Army meat supplies: a portrait of February 1917 of the 57th or 58th Battalion butchery, made by the Darge Photographic Company    Image credit: Australian War Memorial 

Dan is recorded as a resident of both Budleigh Salterton and Newton Poppleford. He joined the Regular Army in 1897, enlisting in the Royal Army Service Corps at Aldershot. No doubt because of his family background  he was attached to the 50th Field Butchery Division.  Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914 he was posted to Egypt where his work involved the provision of meat supplies.  

It is possible, thinks Newton Poppleford local historian John Hagger, that Dan’s death may have been due to his poor working conditions. “The conditions of slaughter houses in a country with very high temperatures and water available only for drinking, is not difficult to imagine.”

Disease was a significant killer during the Gallipoli campaign. Conditions on the peninsula deteriorated in the summer heat. Plagues of flies caused by the primitive sanitation led to outbreaks of typhoid, also known as enteric fever, and dysentery. Lice were a universal problem. Thousands of men were evacuated to hospital ships and back to base hospitals at Lemnos island, Egypt and Malta.

The SS Egypt was built in1897 by Caird & Co for P&O and served as a hospital ship during the Great War. In 1922 in fog in the English Channel she collided with the cargo vessel Seine and sank, killing 86 people. Her strong room contained more than £1 million in silver bullion and gold sovereigns. In the 1930s an Italian salvage company used explosives and a diver to open the strong room and recover most of the silver and gold.  Image credit: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland 

The P&O liner Egypt had been hired by the Admiralty as a Hospital Ship on 2 August 1915, and it was here that Dan succombed to dysentery like so many others during the Gallipoli campaign.     

Newton Poppleford's War Memorial, seen here and below, records the names of Dan and Charlie Smale

His wife, living at 9 Perriams Place off Chapel Street in Budleigh Salterton, wrote to the authorities on 28 October to ask for her husband’s possessions and these were returned to her along with his medals on 16 January 1916.  

Newton Poppleford War Memorial

Local resident John Hagger has done a tremendous job in presenting Newton Poppleford's casualties of the Great War at http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Devon/NewtonPoppleford.html

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!

 

A New Zealander at Gallipoli: Gunner Stephen John Prew, 15 Sept 1915

  

Stephen Prew and his family at their home Well Cottage, Prew's Hill, Knowle.  Front row (l-r): Louie, William T. and Harriet (parents), Reg; 2nd row (l-r) Edward, Emma; 
3rd row (l-r) William (served in the Royal Field Artillery), Stephen, Arthur, Alice, Albert, Florrie, Walter
Image credit: Fairlynch Museum 


Gunner Stephen John Prew was among those Gallipoli casualties with links to the Lower Otter Valley who had emigrated from Britain to overseas Commonwealth territories.  













The New Zealand Field Artillery badge 

Born in 1893 at Upton Pyne, a few miles north-west of Exeter, he was the son of William Thomas and Harriet Prew. His parents later moved to Well Cottage, Knowle, in East Budleigh parish, and in 1911 he is recorded as living with them and working as an assistant grocer.  

When war broke out he and his brother Albert were living in New Zealand,  Stephen seemingly at Hamilton in the Waikato region of North Island as this was recorded as his enlistment address. 

He was unmarried. Albert was listed as his next of kin, living care of a Mrs Hain in Otahuhu, a suburb of Auckland in the North Island. Like other local men such as Tristram Copplestone Palmer and Reginald Cowd, they had hoped for a better life in that country. New Zealand’s economy had improved by the 1900s and in 1904 assisted migration was restored, making the country an attractive proposition for new immigrants.  

A typical embarkation scene in Wellington as troops prepare to leave for the Great War. Courtesy of Archives New Zealand (Archives Ref: AAME 8106, 11/17/3, R20939655) Source: http://ww100.govt.nz/the-new-zealand-expeditionary-force-sets-forth

On 6 August 1914, shortly after the First World War broke out, Britain accepted New Zealand’s offer of an expeditionary force of approximately 8000 men. Stephen Prew was one of those who volunteered. He embarked on either the troopship Arawa or its companion vessel Limerick at Wellington, leaving New Zealand on 16 October and arriving in Suez on 3 December.   

A 5.4 inch howitzer and crew during WW1 

Large numbers of New Zealanders had volunteered for artillery and a brigade of three batteries, totalling twelve 18-pounder field guns, had been raised. A fourth battery was equipped with 4.5-inch howitzers.  Although not as destructive as the 18-pounder, the howitzer's range (6300 metres) and ability to fire at a high angle was invaluable amidst the hilly terrain at Anzac.

A gun of the 3rd Battery, N.Z.F.A. at Cape Helles, Gallipoli
"After our experience of cover in France, the sheet of galvanized iron and row of sandbags is almost ludicrous. Notice the typical Gallipoli hair-cut and the absence of many garments," reads a diary extract of the time
Source: The New Zealanders at Gallipoli by Major Fred Waite DSO, NZE 
Published by Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington, 1919


Photo credit: Capt Farr DSO, MC


By December the New Zealand artillery force was in Egypt, training in readiness for the Gallipoli landings. On 26 April 1915, the NZFA had the honour of being the first battery ashore at what has become known as Anzac Cove on the western side of the Gallipoli peninsula.  















Stephen Prew was killed in action on 15 September 1915 at Gallipoli, aged 22. His grave is unknown, but his name is recorded on the Chunuk Bair (New Zealand) Memorial in Canakkale, Turkey. The memorial is one of four erected to commemorate New Zealand soldiers who died on the Gallipoli peninsula and whose graves are not known. It bears more than 850 names.  

Stephen’s name is also listed on the Auckland Museum War Memorial in New Zealand, and on the village and church memorials in East Budleigh. The latter memorial lists him erroneously as Driver rather than Gunner. 

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!